Before our kids were born, Mrs. Smitty and I went to the Cherry Fest up in Traverse City. 2 Marine Corps Harriers flew about 200 feet above the ground, full-tilt, from behind the crowd. One of those didn't-hear-it-until-they-were-directly-overhead things.

She didn't know the Harriers' secret trick, so she gasped (after she picked herself up off the ground from the flyover) as the Harriers slowed down...and hovered over the bay like a helicopter.

So to piggyback on your 1st comment, B Mac...hey! Our jets with super deadly rockets can also hover and take off and land without a runway. I can park a Harrier with a full compliment of Hellfires right on your back porch. Still wanna play??

I went to boot camp in San Diego, which is right next to the San Diego airport. A couple of times, a C-5 Galaxy landed. All activity outdoors, honestly and truthfully, had to cease because even the Drill Instructors couldn't outshout the Galaxy. That is one loud fucking piece of hardware.

I went to the Osh Kosh airshow in Wisconsin about 20 years ago. Harriers flew there. When they left, they hovered for a few minutes, then pointed their noses up at 45 degress and just blasted upward. It was sweet.

The Joint Strike fighter will have a short take-off, verticle landing version.

Watching that video the whole time I couldn't stop thinking about how crazy it is that that thing flies...

And I don't mean remain airborne—but how the hell does that thing take off, land, steer, or pretty much do anything but flip on it's side and careen for the horizon.

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My uncle flew A-10s in TANG in Syracuse. I got to watch them do training maneuvers once. Standing in a metal observation tower while those things made pass after pass at about a hundred yards firing that gatling cannon in the nose at an armored vehicle target down range—that was fucking LOUD.

The plane itself is slow as jets go (which is why it's such a maneuverable and effective tank-killer) but that just means it's near your ears longer. Every pass, you'd hear the plane coming, then the cannon—a loud BLLAAAAAAAATTT—followed by a sonic boom as the shells fly by...then the plane itself.

And I was wearing earmuffs.

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I've been in several stadium with flybys and I love that shit. Gives me goosebumps.

Our house in Ann Arbor was a few blocks west of the Stadium, and we'd park cars on the lawn, so I'd always be outside nabbing those last stragglers for $20 a pop come kickoff time, and whenever there was a flyby, I'd get to see a sideview of the flyby which was also pretty cool.